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(ITV) Merit

Launches 29th July. Split from ITV Programming Thread (July 2020)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MO
Mockah
Stuart posted:
Mockah posted:
This channel reminds me of Granada Breeze and the Carlton Food Network. Anybody else?

Granada Breeze and CFN were supposed to be profit-making channels for ONdigital/ITVdigital. I believe Granada even build a new studio for Breeze which was in the lot next to Corrie and had views onto a 'garden' of sorts.


Well they remind me of Merit because of how they were both lifestyle channels. I believe when CFN first launched, it was a part-time service timesharing with Carlton Select.
ST
Stuart
Granada Breeze started out as a brand called 'Granada Good Life' with different strands through the day so they could peddle them to ONdigital subscribers as four different channels.
*

It was rather similar to what Carlton were doing with Select, World, Kids, Cinema, Food Network - many of which also time-shared.

I guess with 'Merit', ITV plc have previous form.
NL
Ne1L C
The demi-god that is Applemask made this on the likes of Granada Plus etc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Bx14o0Z0g
WH
what
Ne1L C posted:
demi-god


I don’t remember him being in Percy Jackson.
Rexogamer and Ne1L C gave kudos
IN
Interceptor
Stuart posted:
Granada Breeze started out as a brand called 'Granada Good Life' with different strands through the day so they could peddle them to ONdigital subscribers as four different channels.
*

It was rather similar to what Carlton were doing with Select, World, Kids, Cinema, Food Network - many of which also time-shared.

I guess with 'Merit', ITV plc have previous form.

Granada Good Life and it's many strands had become [Granada] Breeze before ONdigital started.
NW
nwtv2003
Granada Good Life was four sub channels on one channel, but marketed as four channels rather than one. It started in October 1996 as a joint venture between Granada and Sky. The channel rebranded as Granada Breeze in May 1998, a period of six months before joining On Digital. (From memory Good Life was the main brand used towards the end.) The garden studio was purpose built for a show called Livetime which was on both Good Life and Breeze. Imagine This Morning being drawn out for hours on end without a budget.
MO
Mockah
nwtv2003 posted:
Granada Good Life was four sub channels on one channel, but marketed as four channels rather than one. It started in October 1996 as a joint venture between Granada and Sky. The channel rebranded as Granada Breeze in May 1998, a period of six months before joining On Digital. (From memory Good Life was the main brand used towards the end.) The garden studio was purpose built for a show called Livetime which was on both Good Life and Breeze. Imagine This Morning being drawn out for hours on end without a budget.


Oh god. That would be terrifying. Shocked
JA
james-2001
IIRC Breeze lasted a few weeks longer on NTL than it did on Sky and On Digital for some reason. The last thing they showed was some bizarre American gameshow called Strip Poker.
OC
Octothorpe
Brekkie posted:
Octothorpe posted:
A quick thought that may or may not be relevant:

Before BBC3 completely ceased broadcasting as a linear channel - and after its promoted-as 'last night' - it screened about three hours of repeat programming from about 2am every day IIRC for about a month-and-a-half. At the time, I read somewhere it was a requirement or something for any channel to air at least three hours of programming or something during a given day to keep the license to stay on air - or something to that effect (I believe it remained on the EPG during that time basically to aid viewers in the brand's transition to online only). I think that reinforces our consensus Merit's a placeholder.

If we're in luck we'll get ratings for it. Looking forward to a sea of asterisks in its BARB report(!)

That was a condition related to a place on the Sky EPG rather than anything to do with Freeview (who let channels air for an hour overnight) or BARB.


OK, thanks. And re: BARB, that was an unrelated comment; I didn't mean to imply that had anything to do with it. Smile
NW
nwtv2003
james-2001 posted:
IIRC Breeze lasted a few weeks longer on NTL than it did on Sky and On Digital for some reason. The last thing they showed was some bizarre American gameshow called Strip Poker.


Indeed, Breeze hung on for a few weeks. Strip Poker was a Men & Motors programme which had made it over to Breeze. It was quite misleading really as it was safe to show pre-watershed.
:-(
A former member
Not wanting to go off on too much of a tangent but I was thinking the other day about how there’s such a lack of live tv outside the main channels these days. As well as the shows on Breeze we used to have L!ve TV, lots of live shows on MTV, whereits.at - were these things so expensive to produce?
LL
London Lite Founding member
Granada Talk TV also had live programming from I believe Manchester and The London Television Studios where Sacha Baron Cohen got his break presenting youth show F2F before moving to the 11 O'Clock Show on C4.

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